a world of interesting factoids about nothing and everything

October 19th, 2007

(no subject) @ 06:37 pm

This week has been going reasonably well. Today I'm a bit on the annoyed side, but that is another story outlined in a previous entry to those who can see it. The highlight of the week was Holly's visit on Tuesday. She had planned for us to go somewhere mysterious in Knoxville, but it was raining so we spent the day inside. We even played hide and seek, the blind version, and that was really fun. The basic object of the game is the typical hide and seek game style, find the person that's hiding. The only cavit with Holly's version is that you have to find the person either blindfolded, or in my case, just plain blind. The only unfair thing was that we turned on some music so that I couldn't hear her breathing or echolocate her, so had to use methodical techniques to search the room she was in. Definitely a game I'll not forget and we'll have to play again. Another highlight of the day was that we honest to goodness watched PBS and Nova together. I really like Nova, and apparently she does too, so we just nerded it out together and watched part of a series on twins. Very cool. Everyone should be able to claim that they have an extreme nerd as a girlfriend.

The rest of the week, I've been trying to figure out hwo to do this hydrofluoric acid alkelator project. The HF Alkelator basically helps to make gasoline with higher octanes. It's a pain and three quarters to simulate, and I'm just starting to get the idea of how it will need to be done. I was supposed to meet via telephone with the guy I'm doing the project for, but he postponed it until Monday. I hope he can give me some direction because this is really sucking at the moment.

Holly is coming back down tomorrow. Not sure what we'll do, but I think one of the plans was to watch movies of some kind. It will be good to see her again.

Yesterday, I went to an AICHe (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) meeting in Knoxville. Those meetings generally have a speaker talking about something Cheme related so that we can get continuing eeducation credit if we need it. My goal in going was to network with people and ask around casually about finding a job. It was a very positive experience. First of all, being a student, I didn't have to pay for the meal at Calhoun's (a really nice steak house). Second, the job situation for me is looking really promising here in East Tennessee. I wrote Eastman Chemical a message yesterda about where I might send resumes. I havent' heard from them as of yet, but I have faith that I'll find out soon enough. I also got encouraging words from the folks at Y12 and ORNL, both of which would be good jobs. Everything continues to fall into place, so we'll see what happens in the way of real jobs On the 2nd, I'll be doing a presentation for the East Tennessee Economic Council, and then on Monday, will be doing a presentation for the big bosses at the National Labs. I'm excited.

That's about all that's been going on here that is of merit. This is an exciting time of my life, and I hope I can continue, or start to make good decisions.